Perhaps I can best illustrate what I mean when I say that education should connect itself with life, by describing a type of rural school which we have worked out and are seeking to establish in Macon County. There are several schools in our county which might be called, in a certain sense, model country schools. There are nearly fifty communities in which, during the last four or five years, new school buildings have been erected and the school terms lengthened to eight and nine months, largely with funds collected from the Negro farmers under the direction and inspiration of the Tuskegee Institute. [Illustration: THE “RISING STAR” SCHOOLHOUSE With which the community was once satisfied ] [Illustration: THE “RISING STAR” SCHOOLHOUSE That the changed conditions have produced ] The school that I have in mind is known as the “Rising Star.” That is the name that the coloured people gave to their church, and that is now the name which has become attached to the little farming community surrounding it. The “Rising Star” community is composed of some score or more of hard-working, thrifty, successful Negro farmers, the larger number of whom own their land. There is no wealth in this community; neither is there much, if any, actual want. When I first made the acquaintance of “Rising Star,” soon after beginning my work in Alabama, the church which gave the neighbourhood its name was an old, dilapidated building, located in a wornout field. It was about the worst looking building that I had ever seen, up to that time, in which to carry on the work of saving men’s souls. The condition of the farmhouses, the farms, and the school was in keeping with the condition of the church. This was true also of the minister. He was run down and dilapidated. I used frequently to go Sunday afternoons to hear him preach. His sermons usually held on for about an hour and a half. I remember that I used to study them carefully from week to week in the hope that I might hear him utter, at some time or other, a single sentence that seemed to me to have any practical value to any man, woman, or child in his congregation. I was always disappointed, however. Almost without exception, his sermons related to something that is supposed to have taken place two or three thousand years ago, or else they were made up of a vivid description of the horrors of hell and of the glories of heaven.